Gartner Says Worldwide External Controller-Based Disk Storage Market Grew 4 Percent in Second Quarter 2006

STAMFORD, Conn., September 7, 2006 — Worldwide external controller-based (ECB) disk storage revenue totaled $3.6 billion in the second quarter of 2006, a 4.3 percent increase over the same period a year ago, according to Gartner, Inc.

EMC maintained the No. 1 spot finishing the quarter with 23.8 percent of the market (see Table 1). IBM and Hewlett-Packard were locked in a tight race for second and third place this quarter, respectively. IBM maintained its worldwide ECB market share at 14.6 percent, while increasing its revenue by 4 percent year-over-year.  HP’s market share (also at 14.6 percent) fell by 1.5 percent year-over-year. Hitachi/HDS maintained its No. 4 ranking with an 8.3 percent share of the market, while increasing its revenue by 5.8 percent year-over-year. Sun Microsystems took over the No. 5 spot with 7.6 percent market share, just barely ahead of Dell and Network Appliance, both at 7.5 percent.

Network Appliance experienced the strongest growth year-over-year among the top-tier vendors, with 22.2 percent revenue growth. “Sun’s revenue growth of 13.8 percent year-over-year continues to be primarily the result of its acquisition of StorageTek in the third quarter of last year,” said Donna Taylor, principal analyst for Gartner’s global Storage Quarterly Statistics program.

Table 1
 Worldwide External Controller-Based Disk Storage Vendor Revenue Estimates for 2Q06

(Millions of U.S. Dollars)

Company	2Q06 Revenue	2Q06 Market Share (%)	2Q05 Revenue	2Q05 Market Share (%)	2Q05-2Q06 Revenue Change (%)
EMC *	859.2	23.8	824.1	23.8	4.3
IBM	526.7	14.6	506.3	14.6	4.0
Hewlett-Packard	526.7	14.6	519	15.0	1.5
Hitachi/HDS **	300.9	8.3	284.5	8.2	5.8
Sun Microsystems	275.6	7.6	242.2	7.0	13.8
Dell	271.4	7.5	255.5	7.4	6.2
Network Appliance	271.0	7.5	221.8	6.4	22.2
Others	574.2	15.9	603.6	17.5	-4.9
Total	3,605.7	100.0	3,457	100.0	4.3

Note* EMC revenue excludes OEM revenue from Dell and Fujitsu Siemens.
Note ** Hitachi/HDS revenue excludes OEM revenue from HP and Sun Microsystems.
Source: Gartner Dataquest (September 2006)

Smaller vendors continued to see their market share erode, as the “Others” category experienced a revenue decline of 4.9 percent in the second quarter. The top 7 vendors accounted for 84.1 percent of worldwide ECB revenue in 2Q06, up 1.6 percent from last year.

Gartner external controller-based disk storage reports reflect hardware only revenue, as well as hardware revenue associated with financial leases and managed services. Optional storage software revenue and Storage Area Network (SAN) infrastructure components are excluded.

Additional information on the ECB disk storage market is available in the Gartner Dataquest report “Market Share: Disk Array Storage, All Regions, All Countries, 1Q05-2Q06”. The report includes vendor market share by data access method, price band, channel and operating system segmentation.

Gartner analysts will provide more detailed analysis on the state of the storage industry at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo in Orlando, October 9-13, and at the Gartner 25^th Annual Data Center Conference in Las Vegas, November 28- December 1. Additional information is available at www.gartner.com.

 

Contact:


Tom McCall
Gartner
+1 408 468 8312
tom.mccall@gartner.com


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